Singapore Ends Our 2012 Expedition

Oh my goodness!  A beautiful apartment all to ourselves for two weeks, a bedroom with a view over the swimming pool, Mary (the maid) popping in three times a week, bicycles, TV, a comfy sofa and……what more could we want for a fabulous, relaxing, perfect end to 2012.  Kenn, Pla and little Casse headed off to Switzerland for their Christmas holiday and left us on Sentosa Island (where peacocks roam free) to enjoy house-sitting for them.  We’ve used the free bus that drops us off at the marina for a selection of bars, restaurants and a supermarket.

 

We’ve also used the bus to take us through to Vivo City, a huge shopping complex over the causeway on the mainland, which was useful for the Christmas shopping though absolutely packed with last minute shoppers.  From there we’ve hopped on the MRT and wandered around Clarke Quay, Robertson Quay, Chinatown and also enjoyed an evening taking in the amazing Christmas lights along Orchard Road.

 

We spent a long afternoon meandering around the Gardens By The Bay which only opened in July this year.  The huge greenhouse domes were impressive, but what I wanted to see were The Supertrees, dramatic vertical plant displays that we have seen rising out of the ground over our last few visits to Singapore.  In one group there are twelve enormous structures and linking them, there is a walkway that travels about 22m high, underneath the canopy.  It’s wonderful walking around up there looking down on the palm trees, the lakes and the plants below and the views back to Singapore and out over the ocean are brilliant.

 

 

 

I would like to go back there again in a few years’ time when more of the plants have grown and also to see it when it is illuminated in the evening.  After that excursion we had a meal at the Marina Bay Sands complex and then parked our bottoms on the concrete steps outside to watch the water and light show in Marina Bay.

 

Our Christmas day was so very different from any we have had in the past.  We were all alone, no friends or family to visit and with the horrendous price of turkeys here we opted to go out for a late lunch.  It was a hot day and all the shops and restaurants were open, so we walked across to the marina on Sentosa Island and chose a new restaurant called ‘Brussels Sprouts’, it seemed an appropriate name for a Christmas Day lunch spot.  Even after walking back to the apartment, we were both a bit over stuffed, so we had a swim in the pool and then read our books before plonking ourselves down on the sofa to watch the BBC series of Great Expectations.  It was a wonderfully relaxing day, oh and I got a lovely pearl bracelet, a silk scarf and some chocolate for Christmas, all small enough to be squeezed in to the suitcase, or eaten beforehand…..

 

 

We have eaten out a lot while we’ve been in Singapore, despite having a lovely kitchen to cook in; it’s just that the supermarkets are so expensive, that most of the time it seems cheaper and easier to let someone else cook a yummy meal for you.  The prices on a lot of things have been a bit of a shock after Vietnam, but one nice surprise was at the cinema.  We’ve seen three movies at Vivo City, firstly we went to see ‘SkyFall’ (the latest James Bond movie) and the tickets only cost about $6.50 AU (£4.20).   The next time, when we went to see ‘Argo’, the cashier asked if we were both over 55; I’m not sure which one of us she thought might not be that old…?  Yes, we are.  Great!   The tickets only cost us $3.50AU (£2.25) a bargain!!!  Unfortunately after seeing ‘The Hobbit’ we couldn’t come up with any more movies that we wanted to see here….…

 

Apart from all of the above, we have spent our days cycling, swimming in the pool and at the beach, catching up on this blog and reading our books; it has been a perfect way to round off our busy year.  Our sincerest thanks to Kenn and Pla and Casse for leaving us here.

 

On New Year’s Eve we will board a plane at 7:30pm and fly the 6,316 kms to arrive in Sydney early in the morning on New Year’s Day, a very different way to spend New Year’s Eve….!!!  Our house is still rented out, so we can’t go home, but our friends Mark and Fiona have given us their home in Sydney to ‘look after’ while they are away on holiday.  So we’ll be in their harbour-view apartment until January 22^nd.  We have a lot of paperwork and business to attend to before we can continue our travels, so we will probably also be staying with friends Vanea and Peter for a few weeks.  We’re hoping to make a trip up the coast to visit friends in northern New South Wales and Brisbane, if we can get the tax, the car, the dentists, doctors and opticians and endless other ‘stuff’ done quickly.  On February 27^th we fly to Tokyo for three days and then a week skiing at Hakuba with Bobby, Shiho and Maxime.  After that we have four or five days back in Sydney to drop off the skis and do a final pack up again, before flying back to England on March 16^th.

And then we get to pick up Eileen from East Grinstead (thank you Jonathan for looking after her) and we will head off again for more adventures in England, Wales and Europe…….